Sahaja - Awakening to the Light
Sahaja is the name of Rupert Spira’s publishing brand. It literally means spontaneous enlightenment in Sanskrit. Ananda Coomaraswamy describes its significance as "the last achievement of all thought", and "a recognition of the identity of spirit and matter, subject and object".
Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish (1985). The dance of Śiva: essays on Indian art and culture. Courier Dover Publications.
It is a naturally occurring phenomenon and each of us has many small sahaja moments on our journey if we listen for them. The six Liminal Spaces described in this Chapter occurred for me in a sahaja moment in Sardinia, Italy in June, 2019. Consider this quote:
“Man is born with an instinct for naturalness. He has never forgotten the days of his primordial perfection, except insomuch as the memory became buried under the artificial superstructure of civilization and its artificial concepts. Sahaja means natural... The tree grows according to Sahaja, natural and spontaneous in complete conformity with the Natural Law of the Universe. Nobody tells it what to do or how to grow. It has no swadharma or rules, duties and obligations incurred by birth. It has only svabhava - its own inborn self or essence - to guide it. Sahaja is that nature which, when established in oneself, brings the state of absolute freedom and peace.”
Mahendranath, Shri Gurudev. The Pathless Path of Immortality. Dharma Books. 2002.
Every small moment of enlightenment serves to crystalise our consciousness. A grand Sahaja moment might take us closer to realising the dharmakaya and the direct crossing over.
In our Western culture we seek fulfillment in material objects, experiences, substances and relationships. And yet the sense of incompleteness remains. What we sometimes fail to realise is that all that is needed is within us and always has been. Our culture of materialism and sense experience is the direct path to samsara. And in samsara we become trapped in a seemingly endless cycles of craving.
The mind is in constant flow. Thoughts, emotions, images constantly appear in the field of consciousness just like on a movie screen. But they are not properties of the screen. The contents of consciousness are not consciousness itself. To come to this realisation is a Sahaja moment itself.
But a more significant moment occurs when we withdraw our attention from this flow and examine the essence that remains; consciousness itself and if we go deeply into shamatha practice we discover a mind that is luminous and has all it ever needs within itself to be free from suffering. This is Sahaja itself: The mind is poised for the direct crossing over. This is the journey into the infinite (Skt. Ananta) and the unknown (Skt. Avijnata). Beyond the substrate and into unknowing.
